The Voice’s Tessanne Chin: Sad News From Home Nearly “Sidelined Me”

Credit:
Trae Patton/NBC

Tessanne Chin gave the performance of a lifetime on the December 9 live semifinals of The Voice Season 5. With an emotional rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, Tessanne clinched the #1 spot on the iTunes charts and, to be sure, a spot in the finals. But the performance that nearly brought coach Adam Levine to tears and rendered him virtually speechless almost never happened.

Why? Because, after discussing Adam’s song selection for her, Tess got a text from her sister that nearly made the tearjerker far too difficult for her to sing. “I found out some very sad news, and the song took on a completely different meaning for me and it kind of sidelined me,” she tells E! News.

Tessanne doesn’t want to go into detail about the tragedy, saying, “It’s not my story to tell.” However, she does mention later in the interview that it involved someone close to her passing away.

Thankfully, though Tessanne found it difficult to sing the song at first, it sounds like the process eventually helped her through some of the pain she was feeling. “Music for me is not just being on a stage and singing,” she says. “It’s my coping mechanism.”

Knowing a little more about what she was going through makes Tessanne’s powerhouse performance this week all the more remarkable. We hope she and her family find comfort after their loss.